OT or not.. that footage is fricking amazing. Kuba (over at agw) commented on the movie and translated:
The movie is in Czech and it's about Czechoslovak pilots in the RAF.
The squadron list posted is right, short of the 314 squadron which was never established. "A" flight of the 68 Squadron (night fighters) was fully Czechoslovak though. There were lots of Czechoslovak pilots spread out throughout "British" RAF squadrons, too.
Whatever it will be, it won't be a "Hollywood" style movie - the guys who made it are too good for that, heh
It will be playing abroad next year, and will be published on DVD as well, also next year. But if any of you visit Prague sometime in the future, there will be a copy with English subtitles running here - just let me know and I'll find out what theatre it's showing in (and buy you a beer).
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As for the trailer, here's a translation of the spoken comentar told by author of the script (and, incidentally, father of the director) Zdenek Sverak (basically this is the stuff you guys didn't understand):
"I'm looking at old black and white photographs of young, thick-haired men in uniforms of Czechoslovak fighter pilots in the RAF, and I'm thinking of what movie I should write about them, to capture what they did as a matter of course.
I'm sure about one thing: writing about world war 2 is not a an end in itself voyage to action, because the war was a fight of good against evil. It was a fateful fight to save humanity, which could also be lost and which afterall is not finished yet.
I also know that the 20-year old young men from the photographs were different from the other soldiers of that great war: they were all volunteers. They were elite in the best sense of the word. They could have stayed home in the Protectorate, get married and peacefully work for Hitler's empire as most of their countrymen. But something called "sense of duty" or "consciousness", "patriotism" or "unwillingness to be ashamed" did not let them.
Our story should weigh this courage of theirs, to record friendship of men in danger, their joys and loves in those breaks in the bloody war, their fear of death and obsession with flying. It should blame the unbelievable ungratefulness laid in front of them by history after their return home. And at the same time it should be beautiful.
Well, we shall see..."
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You guys have good eyes, they got hold of some unused footage from BoB, digitally remastered it and beefed it up with computer tricks, simply because (quote) "you cannot get that many Heinkels and Messerschmidts in the air at the same time anymore".
I've seen the "film about film" and some of the low-level flight footage shown there is simply amazing.
Here are also some tidbits I originally posted on our squad list:
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I just watched a document about the filming of the new Jan Sverak's (Oscar
holder for "Kolya") movie "Tmavomodry svet" ("Dark-blue World"), which will
open on May the 17th here.
This movie will be about the Czech RAF pilots, and, frankly, I'm looking
forward to it more than I'm looking forward to ww2ol.
From what I've seen so far it's gonna be fantastic. Don't worry, it will be
showing abroad sometime next year, but Freaky might get to see it if he
really visits us again :-)
The flight scenes they showed in the document literally made me shout "holy
shit!" (of course in Czech), unbelievable - low-level twist and turning
between trees, strafing a train and everything.
Considering how long it is since the last aviation movie was made it looks
like the advances in special effects and computer animation provide for a
very cool movie.
By the way just few quotes from the director:
"I was in a horrible position, because for this movie I wasn't only the
director but also producer. Spitfires are wonderful aircraft, but their one
flight hour costs 300 000 Crowns (about 6 000 pounds); when one of them was
coming in for landing the little boy part of me was loving the aircraft and
everything about it, while the producer part was screaming "what if he has
to go around once more and it costs me 500 pounds!" - but in the end I had
him circle once more, just couldn't help it."
There's a scene I already mentioned where the two main heroes strafe a fuel
train in France; he said: "This is not an essential scene, it just serves
as a sort of diversion before what happens next, it distracts the public.
It was the most expensive scene in the movie, costing 30 million crowns
(about 600000 quid), we blew up a real train twice - it costs the same as
making the replicas pretty much. We could've used something else, like
having the main heros go for a walk and talk, but my father (Zdenek Sverak,
the scriptwriter, also a director and acter and a person I respect
immensely) really wanted the scene in the movie. So after we finished it I
called him and said "Your train scene is done. It cost the same as "Kolya".
(Kolya is their previous movie for which Jan Sverak got an Academy Award).
He also talked about the sound of Merlin: "You know, the Spitfires have a
Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in them, with twelve pistons. It just has this
magical sound - like it is tuned to some musical tone - the first time they
flew low over our heads was just amazing.."
They used four (I think) of the Duxford Spitfires for the movie, and other
planes from all over the world. Also some unused scenes from Battle of
Brittain were used, digitally enahnced and incorporated into the scene,
simply because you can't get that many 109s and Heinkels up at the same time
anymore.
All in all, it's gonna be a blast!
